By All about designer toy artist Jessica Emmett
For our first ever Invasion Toys Artist of the Week, and in celebration of one of our top entries in the Invasion Toys x New York Comic Con 2021 artist roster, we proudly present, the unflappable Jessica Emmett!
- Name: Jessica Emmett
- Born: Hong Kong, May 10, 2024
- Zodiac: Year of the Dog / Taurus
- Favorite color: Purple
- Favorite Pokémon:
- Current location: Singapore
Emmett is a UK artist whose creative talents span many fields. From design work to photography and film to illustration, she has an expansive body of work dating back to 2007 and before.
Jessica Emmett (who prefers to be called Jess), received a BA in Photography, and later an MA with distinction in Media Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University. Here, she examined her experience as an adoptee, which also had a strong influence on her early career and community work. You can read about those works and experiences on her personal website.
Emmett is now based in Singapore, where she has come into her own as one of the designer toy industry’s brightest.
Beginnings
Jessica Emmett was born in Hong Kong in 1982 to a birthmother who was a Vietnamese refugee. She was adopted by her British parents who were also based in Hong Kong, where she grew up until 1998 when her family moved back to the UK.
These early life experiences heavily influenced her early career, much of which is studded with achievements and accolades. You can read about those here.
Over the next 10 years, Emmett experimented with and excelled at the arts. Meanwhile, the 2008 global financial crisis would allow Jessica to rediscover her childhood passion for illustration. In 2013, she began pursuing art fulltime.
In 2015, Emmett moved to Singapore with her neuroscientist husband, where they co-created Mad Scientist Cat. This webcomic would land them a booth at 2016’s Singapore Toy Game and Comic Convention (formerly STGCC, now Singapore Comic Con). It was here that Emmett chanced upon the world of designer art toys, a medium that she had never before experienced.
I accidently discovered designer toys and felt it was an amazing extension to my illustration work and have not looked back. At heart I’m always an illustrator and spend a lot of time trying to recreate the spirit of my 2D work in my 3D work.
Jessica Emmett, 2021
By the following year, Emmett was designing and casting her very own line of hand-painted resin unicorns, and she hasn’t stopped since!
Art to the Power of Heart
Art to the Power of Heart is the (un)official slogan of Jessica Emmett Studios. While all of her toys are equal parts cute and ambitious, her creations are not just a visual delight. Rather, all of Emmett’s original characters and custom pieces are intrinsically tied to concepts and thoughts that are close to her heart.
For example, Knotanxi represents inner anxiety, Eemo Cloud represents depression and hope, Merlions represent Jessica’s love for Singapore, and Oxenlock represents unlockable potential (one Oxenlock in particular was just announced as a finalist of the 2021 Copic Award!).
These days, Jessica spends much of her time in her in-home studio, where she illustrates, drafts, sculpts, and casts her amazing creatures and customs. Though her sculpting prowess was nurtured in the physical, she has recently branched out into the world of digital rendering where the possibilities are truly endless. Watch her progress closely, as she’s sure to keep pushing the limits of sculpture and illustration.
If you haven’t already, be sure to follow her socials, as Jessica is kind enough to share every step of her work. Through her posts, you’ll be sure to learn quite a lot! She provides a rich source of information for fresh faces and seasoned sculptors alike.
Follow Jessica Emmett:
Web: jessica-emmett.com/
Instagram: instagram.com/jessica_emmett/
Facebook: facebook.com/JessicaEmmettArtist
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